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Yankee pitcher killed in Manhattan plane crash

(AP) A small plane carrying New York Yankee Cory
Lidle slammed into a 50-story skyscraper Wednesday, apparently
killing the pitcher and a second person in a crash that rained
flaming debris onto the sidewalks and briefly raised fears of
another terrorist attack.

A law enforcement official in Washington said Lidle - an avid
pilot who got his flying license during last year's offseason - was
aboard the single-engine aircraft when it crashed into the 30th and
31st floors of the high-rise on Manhattan's Upper East Side. Mayor
Michael Bloomberg said both people aboard were killed.

It was not immediately clear who was at the controls and who was
the second person aboard. Law enforcement officials, speaking on
condition of anonymity, said Lidle's passport was found on the
street.

Federal Aviation Administration records showed the plane was
registered to Lidle, who had repeatedly assured reporters in recent
months that flying was safe and that the Yankees - who were
traumatized in 1979 when catcher Thurman Munson was killed in the
crash of a plane he was piloting - had no reason to worry.

"The flying?" the 34-year-old Lidle, who had a home near Los
Angeles, told The Philadelphia Inquirer this summer. "I'm not
worried about it. I'm safe up there. I feel very comfortable with
my abilities flying an airplane."

The crash came just four days after the Yankees' embarrassingly
quick elimination from the playoffs, during which Lidle had been
relegated to the bullpen. In recent days, Lidle had taken abuse
from fans on sports talk radio for saying the team was unprepared.

The law enforcement official said the plane had issued a
distress call before the crash. The FAA said it was too early to
determine what might have caused the crash. The National
Transportation Safety Board sent investigators.

"This is a terrible and shocking tragedy that has stunned the
entire Yankees organization," Yankees owner George Steinbrenner
said in a statement. He offered his condolences to Lidle's wife and
son.

The crash rattled New Yorkers' nerves five years after the Sept.
11 attacks, abut the FBI and the Homeland Security quickly said
there was no evidence it was anything but an accident.
Nevertheless, within 10 minutes of the crash, fighter jets were
sent aloft over several cities, including New York, Washington, Los
Angeles and Seattle, Pentagon officials said.

The plane came through a hazy, cloudy sky and hit The Belaire -
a red-brick tower overlooking the East River, about five miles from
the World Trade Center - with a loud bang. It touched off a raging
fire that cast a pillar of black smoke over the city and sent
flames shooting from four windows on two adjoining floors.

Firefighters put the blaze out in less than an hour.

Large crowds gathered in the street in the largely wealthy New
York neighborhood, with many people in tears and some trying to
reach loved ones by cell phone.

"It wasn't until I was halfway home that I started shaking. The
whole memory of an airplane flying into a building and across the
street from your home. It's a little too close to home," Sara
Green, 40, who lives across the street from The Belaire. "It
crossed my mind that it was something bigger or the start of
something bigger."

On Sunday, the day after the Yankees were eliminated from the
playoffs, Lidle cleaned out his locker at Yankee Stadium and talked
about his interest in flying.

He said he intended to fly back to California in several days
and planned to make a few stops. Lidle discussed the plane crash
that killed John F. Kennedy Jr. and how he had read the accident
report on the NTSB Web site.

Lidle, acquired from the Philadelphia Phillies on July 30, told
The New York Times last month that his four-seat Cirrus SR20 was
safe.

"The whole plane has a parachute on it," Lidle said.
"Ninety-nine percent of pilots that go up never have engine
failure, and the 1 percent that do usually land it. But if you're
up in the air and something goes wrong, you pull that parachute,
and the whole plane goes down slowly."

Lidle pitched 1 1/3 innings in the fourth and final game of the
Division Series against the Detroit Tigers and gave up three earned
runs, but was not the losing pitcher. He had a 12-10 regular-season
record with a 4.85 ERA.

He pitched with the Phillies before coming to the Yankees. Began
his career in 1997 with the Mets. He also pitched for Tampa Bay,
Oakland, Toronto and Cincinnati.

The guarantee language of Lidle's $6.3 million, two-year
contract, signed with the Phillies in November 2004, contained a
provision saying the team could get out of paying the remainder if
he were injured or killed while piloting a plane. Because the
regular season is over, Lidle already had received the full amount
in the deal.

After the Yankees' defeat at the hands of the Tigers, Lidle
called in to WFAN sports-talk radio two days before the crash to
defend manager Joe Torre, and said: "I want to win as much as
anybody. But what am I supposed to do? Go cry in my apartment for
the next two weeks."

Lidle was an outcast among some teammates throughout his career
because he became a replacement player in 1995, when major leaguers
were on strike.

Among the baseball stars killed in plane crashes were Roberto
Clemente, Pittsburgh Pirates outfielder, killed Dec. 31, 1972, at
age 38 while en route to Nicaragua to aid earthquake victims; and
Munson, the Yankee catcher killed Aug. 2, 1979, at age 32 in
Canton, Ohio.

"It's just sadder than sad," said New York Mets pitching coach
Rick Peterson, who was Lidle's pitching coach in Oakland. "It's
horrific. It's almost unbelievable. It's a surreal moment."

Young May Cha, a 23-year-old Cornell University medical student,
said she was walking back from the grocery store down East 72nd
Street when she saw something come across the sky and crash into
the building. Cha said there appeared to be smoke coming from
behind the aircraft, and "it looked like it was flying erratically
for the short time that I saw it."

The plane left New Jersey's Teterboro Airport, across the Hudson
River from the city, at 2:30 p.m., about 15 minutes before the
crash, according to officials at the Port Authority of New York and
New Jersey, which operates the airport. But they said they did not
where the aircraft was headed.

Former NTSB director Jim Hall said in a telephone interview he
doesn't understand how a plane could get so close to a New York
City building after Sept. 11.

"We're under a high alert and you would assume that if
something like this happened, people would have known about it
before it occurred, not after," Hall said.

Mystery writer Carol Higgins Clark, daughter of author Mary
Higgins Clark, lives on the 38th floor but was not home at the
time. She described the building's residents as a mix of actors,
doctors, lawyers and writers, and people with second homes.

Despite initial fears of a terrorist attack, all three New York
City-area airports continued to operate normally, FAA spokesman Jim
Peters said. The White House said neither President Bush nor Vice
President Dick Cheney was moved to secure locations.

The Belaire was built in the late 1980s and is situated near
Sotheby's auction house. It has 183 apartments, many of which sell
for more than $1 million.

Several lower floors are occupied by doctors and administrative
offices, as well as guest facilities for family members of patients
at the Hospital for Special Surgery, hospital spokeswoman Phyllis
Fisher said. No patients were in the high-rise, Fisher said.